This invention relates, in general, to facilitating processing within a computing environment, and in particular, to improving the use of accelerators within the computing environment.
Accelerators are used today to increase the processing capabilities of a server. In particular, accelerators coupled to the server are optimized to perform certain functions, enabling those functions to be performed at higher speeds than if those functions were performed by the server. When a function is reached in a program executed by the server, the server sends a request to the accelerator to perform the function. The accelerator performs the function and forwards the result back to the server. The server either performs further processing on the returned result or simply forwards the result to another accelerator, which then performs processing and sends the result back to the server, again.
In computing environments that include logical partitions (or other logical entities), each logical partition has its own set of accelerators to perform functions for the programs executing within that logical partition.